Wishing You Were Somewhere Else Again
by Rhianwen
Summary: [Chapter 6 uploaded! Edited for continuity issue.] A dark and twisted tale in which, finding themselves trapped in a rainstorm, our heroes seek refuge in an opera house. A SlayersPOTO crossover
1. Chapter 1

Wishing You Were Somewhere Else Again  
  
By Snugglekitty, a.k.a. Yezo the Yellow Priest(ess)  
  
Disclaimer: Lina, Gourry, Zelgadis, and Amelia are owned by the guy who created Slayers. Everyone else is owned by Gaston Leroux. Everyone I use in this story, I do so without permission, but that's okay, since no one's giving me money for this. [Irritated grumble.]  
  
  
  
Chapter 1  
  
"Oooh, I'm so HUNGRY!" Lina Inverse, petite red-headed sorcery genius extraordinaire whined with special fervour. "The food those guys gave us wasn't enough to feed ME, let alone enough to share with the rest of you-"  
  
"But Miss Lina," Amelia Wil Teslea Seyruun piped up timidly, gingerly fingering a long, shallow cut extending across her forehead, "you didn't share with the rest of us. When I tried to take a piece of bread, you attacked me with a fork!"  
  
Lina, ignoring her small, disgruntled companion, continued.  
  
"-and I had to threaten those two with certain death-by-fireball to get even that!"  
  
Zelgadis Greywords sighed, moving across the room to a large window surrounded by draperies of rich green velvet, and stared out moodily.  
  
"Lina, I sincerely doubt that Andre and Firmin even believed you."  
  
"Yeah," Amelia agreed, "they probably just thought you were a harmless lunatic."  
  
"Harmless?!" Lina shrieked incredulously. "Harmless! I'll show you just how 'harmless' I can be!"  
  
Amelia, reading her own certain doom in the hunger-addled sorceress's eyes, backed away nervously.  
  
"Oh, stop it, Lina," Zelgadis admonished, barring Lina's advance on the smaller girl with an outstretched arm. "This situation is far from ideal in all our minds, and putting one of us in the hospital is not going to help matters any."  
  
"Yeah, Lina. And anyway, I'm sure they'll bring us more food if we ask for it," Gourry Gabriev, silent until now, suggested. Lina's eyes lit up noticeably, into their ruby depths flashing into a glow that her three companions recognized immediately as a sure sign of trouble in the offing.  
  
"I can't believe I'm about to say this, Gourry," she began, a sly smile overtaking her features, "but I like the way you think."  
  
"You.do?" Gourry started in surprise at this unexpected admission.  
  
"Sure! If I prove to our kindly hosts that I can, in fact, fireball them into next year, they'll be more than willing to supply us with more food in return for their safety!"  
  
"Oh, Miss Lina," Amelia protested, "that's hardly fair on them. They were, after all, nice enough to give us shelter until this storm passes, and an amount of food that already must have cost a small fortune. Won't we seem ungrateful if we demand more food instead of thanking them for what they already gave us?"  
  
"Hey, I know! We could thank them, and then demand more food!" Gourry suggested proudly.  
  
Zelgadis sighed, then turned to Amelia.  
  
"If I were you, Amelia, I wouldn't worry about the financial state of our good hosts Firmin and Andre. They were dressed pretty pretentiously, and I don't know if you've seen the insides of their offices, but the furnishings don't exactly suggest a thrifty nature in either of them."  
  
Lina nodded.  
  
"Zel's right, Amelia, and you're hungry, aren't you?"  
  
"Well.I suppose so, but."  
  
"Don't worry! We'll pay them for our food and lodging when we leave," Lina assured her.  
  
"Well.I suppose, if we pay them, it's alright, but we should ask more nicely. After all, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," Amelia finished, nodding. Lina rolled her eyes.  
  
"Yeah, that's great if you wanna catch flies, but I'd rather get some food. Look, kid, I've been around a bit more than you, and while being polite and all may make you friends, using a bit of force to back it up will get you better results faster."  
  
"In her own way, I believe Lina's making a valid point," Zelgadis commented, shrugging. Amelia was spared from replying as a soft knock sounded on the door and a young, dark-haired girl walked in.  
  
"Good evening, everyone," she greeted them in a soft voice, smiling shyly. "My! Monsieur Firmin was right! You certainly are a strange bunch," she continued, inquiring as curiosity overcame shyness, "So, who are all of you?"  
  
"I'm Lina Inverse," Lina told her flatly, awaiting the usual reaction of "What?! The Dragon-Spooker?!" that usually came when she revealed her identity.  
  
Her surprise, therefore, was rather great when the girl only nodded and commented,  
  
"That's an interesting name." Then she turned to Gourry. "And what's your name?"  
  
"I'm Gourry Gabriev," he replied, shaking her hand heartily. "And who are you?"  
  
"I'm Meg Giry. I'm one of the dancers for this place," she explained.  
  
Gourry nodded.  
  
"It's nice to meet you, Meg."  
  
"Likewise, Mr. Gabriev," she replied with a smile, then turned to Amelia. "And who are you, dear?"  
  
"My name's Amelia Wil Teslea Seyruun," the small girl replied, smiling politely. She turned to where Zelgadis was planted by a large window, watching the torrents of rain pour down as one hypnotized. "Mr. Zelgadis?" she ventured. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"  
  
"Hmm?" Zelgadis shook himself from his thoughts. "Oh, yes. I'm Zelgadis Greywords. It's nice to meet you, Meg."  
  
Thus saying, Zelgadis turned back to the window. For a moment, Meg stared, somewhat taken aback by the purple metallic cast of the man's hair, and the blue hue and distinctly rocky-looking texture of the skin of his hands. 'However,' she decided resolutely, 'it is probably neither the time, nor the place, to ask about it. Perhaps Amelia can be induced to explain later on...' Glancing up, and finally becoming aware that she had been silent for some moments now, Meg, grinned wryly, commenting softly to Amelia,  
  
"Your friend's a real social butterfly, I take it."  
  
"Zel? Oh, don't worry about him. He doesn't like people very much," Lina informed her, overhearing. From the window, drifted the retort,  
  
"Well, maybe I'd like people a little more if they weren't all such idiots."  
  
"Ah. I think I understand," Meg nodded. "Oh, yes," she continued. "Monsieur Firmin asked me to see you all to your rooms."  
  
"Ooh! Can we have more food, too?" Lina cut in excitedly. Meg raised an eyebrow, her expression uneasy.  
  
"I'll.have to ask Monsieur Firmin about that. I'll do that once you're all settled for the night." Lina nodded her satisfaction.  
  
"Now," Meg continued, "we have three rooms, and so you'll have to decide on rooming arrangements. Would you girls each like your own room, or would you like to share and let the gentlemen each have a room to themselves?"  
  
Amelia shrugged.  
  
"Any preference, 'gentlemen?'" Lina inquired, winking at Gourry.  
  
"Well," Gourry replied, winking back, "being the gentlemen that we are, we should probably let you ladies have rooms to yourselves. Don't you agree, Zelgadis?"  
  
Zelgadis, still planted by the window, turned slightly and shrugged.  
  
"Why do I get the distinct feeling that they're making fun of me?" Meg muttered aside to Amelia. The young traveller patted the dancer's shoulder consolingly.  
  
"Don't worry about it. They do it to me all the time," she assured her.  
  
"Lucky you," Meg replied with a sympathetic smile.  
  
"Actually," Amelia amended, "they do it to everyone."  
  
"Uh, Meg?" Lina spoke up. "I think Amelia and I will share a room. After all, I don't think two nice, defenceless young ladies like us should be left alone." Another wink at Gourry.  
  
Meg sighed.  
  
"They're doing it again," she informed Amelia, a hint of irritation in her voice, then turned to Lina and said brightly, "Well, then, let's be off!"  
  
She led the group of weary travellers from the room and down a long, dimly lit, grandly, if rather gloomily, decorated hallway.  
  
  
  
"This is where you two will be staying," Meg announced, leading Lina and Amelia into a smallish room with two narrow cots, one in either corner opposite the door.  
  
Other than these cots, the furnishings were rather sparse. There was a dressing-table and mirror next to the door, a dresser in front of each bed, and a night-table with an oil lamp and a wash basin between the two beds. Centered between the two cots was a large window, and the rain pattered ceaselessly against the glass.  
  
That's gonna drive me nuts before the night's through, Lina reflected wryly. Good thing Amelia snores so loudly. Maybe that'll cancel it out.  
  
If Miss Lina didn't snore so loudly, that rain would become annoying quickly, Amelia reflected with a small smile.  
  
Why are they both being so quiet? Meg wondered uneasily. Am I going to get out of this alive? Why, oh, why did I leave my room after nightfall to investigate the cause of the ruckus? Nothing good has ever come of it before. Why did I never learn before? Why-  
  
"Ahem.Meg?" A slightly annoyed Zelgadis put an effective end to her internal rant.  
  
"Yes, Mr. Greywords?" she replied cheerily. Zelgadis sighed.  
  
"Are you going to show Gourry and I where we're supposed to be now?"  
  
"What?!" Lina burst in, in mock surprise. "You boys aren't staying in here with us? But we'd have so much FUN, wouldn't we, Amelia?"  
  
"Oh, yes!" the princess exclaimed, continuing along the older girl's vein. "We could have a sleepover party! We could do each other's make-up, and talk about boys, and have a taffy pull, and tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets!"  
  
Meg giggled.  
  
"Well, even if the boys don't want to join in, could I come to the sleepover?"  
  
"Sure! The more, the merrier!" Lina proclaimed. Amelia jumped up and down, clapping her hands and squealing giddily. Zeldagis sighed once more. Gourry ginned.  
  
"Are you beginning to have serious concerns about their mental state, too?" he inquired sympathetically. Zelgadis snorted.  
  
"[Beginning] to have serious concerns?" he repeated incredulously.  
  
Gourry chuckled as Meg, waving a cheery goodbye to the girls and promising to return later with lots and lots of chocolate, stepped nimbly between the two men and set off down the hallway. After calling a final good-night to Lina and Amelia, Gourry and Zelgadis exited the room, Gourry shoving the door closed with his foot behind them, and followed after the bobbing circle of light emanating from Meg's oil lamp. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
  
  
The muted footsteps of the trio echoed softly in the dark, otherwise silent hallway. Zelgadis glanced about him furtively from the circle of light cast by the lamp.  
  
'There's something not altogether right about this place,' he noted silently, watching the sinister shadows slide over the walls. 'I get the sense that something is going to happen before we can get out of here tomorrow morning. Possibly something horrifying. But, more likely, it'll just be something ridiculous, like everything else that seems to happen me since I joined up with these people.'  
  
"Hey, Zelgadis?"  
  
He turned to the swordsman.  
  
"What is it, Gourry?"  
  
The blond man's uneasy whisper continued.  
  
"Do you get the feeling that something really horrible is going to happen before the night is over? Or maybe something stupid?"  
  
"Don't worry, Gourry," Zelgadis replied with a slight smile. "I'm sure it's nothing Lina can't blast into next year if the need arises."  
  
"Somehow that doesn't make me feel much better. Lina blasting things into next year is how a lot of the stupid things that happen to us get started," Gourry muttered.  
  
"That's a good point, Gourry. Well, we can hope that she'll be too busy with that sleepover the girls are planning to get into undue amounts of trouble."  
  
They both glanced forward again as Meg murmured something to herself.  
  
"What 'other room' could Monsieur Firmin have been talking about? Here's the boarding room, second from the end of the hallway, but the only other empty room near it is.oh, no! Monsieur Firmin couldn't possibly mean to put one of these men in THAT room!" She laughed to herself at the apparent absurdity of the mere idea.a laugh that was, Zelgadis noted, rather wild and hysterical. He sighed and shook his head.  
  
"Is anything wrong, Meg?" Gourry spoke up nervously. At the sound, Meg gave a startled shriek and whirled about.  
  
"Oh!" she gasped. "Mr. Gabriev! You startled me. Um.no, nothing's wrong. I'm just trying to figure out which rooms Monsieur Firmin could have meant for me to put you and Mr. Greywords in for the night."  
  
"Could it be." Gourry glanced quickly about the hallway, dismissing several doors with light shining from the crack beneath them, as well as one door barred by planks of wood nailed across it, before finally pointing to a closed door much like the one that they were currently standing in front of. ".that one?"  
  
"Well, I had thought that that room was still being used, but maybe the gentleman using it left today?" Meg pondered, her brow wrinkling. She approached the door and knocked softly. A groggy voice from inside the room slurred out something incomprehensible.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, Monsieur," Meg called softly. "I didn't know if someone was still using this room. We won't bother you any further."  
  
She turned away from the door with a sigh and walked back over to where Zelgadis and Gourry were standing.  
  
"I suppose you two may have to share a room after all," she informed them apologetically, unlocking and opening the door to a room much like the one given over to Lina and Amelia, but with one less cot and no window.  
  
"Hey, no problem," Gourry replied nonchalantly. "I can sleep on the floor, if you wouldn't mind getting me a blanket and a pillow."  
  
"My good sir," a voice exclaimed from behind the small group, causing the swordsman, the sorcerer, and the dancer to utter startled shrieks and jump about a foot in the air, "you will do no such thing!"  
  
Gourry, Meg, and Zelgadis all turned slowly to behold the face of the aforementioned Firmin, alternately smiling politely at Gourry and Zelgadis, and frowning sternly at Meg, who shrank back with a frightened squeak.  
  
"Hey, Zelgadis," Gourry whispered to the chimera. "That's the noise that Amelia always makes when she's just said something to make Lina really mad."  
  
"So it is," Zelgadis replied with a small smile.  
  
"Meg," Firmin turned to the girl, shifting a large crowbar from one hand to the other. "Did I not tell you that we had a room for each of these gentlemen in this hallway?"  
  
"Yes, you did, Monsieur, but I couldn't figure out which rooms you meant. I only found one that was free. All the others are in use, except.and you couldn't possibly mean to put him THERE." Meg infused so much genuine fear and nervousness into that 'THERE' that Gourry and Zelgadis involuntarily shivered.  
  
"Such nonsense!" Firmin scoffed. "Of course that's where I meant to put him. What, did you think that room was never to be used again, just to satisfy the whim of some overly-sentimental madman?"  
  
He shook his head and, walking over to the door decorated with wooden planks nailed over top of it, chuckled and called over his shoulder to Gourry and Zelgadis,  
  
"Don't worry about a thing, gentlemen. I'll have the door open in a moment." Then, lifting the crowbar, he proceeded to pry off the wooden planks.  
  
"Um.Mr. Firmin," Zelgadis began nervously, "is there some reason that that door was locked and barred?"  
  
"No, don't be silly, my good man!" Firmin drawled, tossing the last plank aside and removing a key from his breast pocket. Meg shook her head in despair.  
  
"Monsieur Firmin, you aren't going to tell them, are you?"  
  
"Tell us what?" Zelgadis demanded.  
  
"Nothing at all," Firmin proclaimed, stepping aside as the door swung open. "Just some little.incident occurring with a singer that once used this dressing room." He raised his eyebrow. "I don't see, gentlemen, that you're in any situation to be picky about your lodgings at the moment."  
  
"Of course not," Zelgadis sighed.  
  
"Very well, then," Firmin clapped his hands. "I bid you goodnight."  
  
Meg glared after his retreating back, shaking her head.  
  
"I really don't think either of you want to use that room," she whispered.  
  
"Look here, Meg, we're both tired. If you can get us some more blankets and pillows, Gourry and I will share a room, as long as we can get some sleep some time tonight," Zelgadis huffed impatiently.  
  
"I think that's probably best," Meg replied, drawing a relieved sigh and setting off down the hallway.  
  
  
  
"Well, I don't know what she was talking about, but the whole mystery's got my interest," Gourry commented, idly sharpening his sword as he sat, leaning up against the wall across from the small cot.  
  
Zelgadis, from that same cot, replied irritably,  
  
"Look, Gourry, it's very late, and we have to be out of here as soon as possible tomorrow morning, right?"  
  
Gourry nodded hesitantly. Zelgadis continued.  
  
"Thus, we want to be well-rested. Now, if we are to have any chance at that, there is not a moment to waste in getting to sleep. Meg will be back soon with your blankets and pillows, and then you can go to sleep and forget all about the room across the hall."  
  
"But, Zelgadis," Gourry protested, shifting to lean forward slightly, "that Firmin guy was gonna put one of us in that room. Aren't you at all curious about why Meg didn't want him to? And the "sentimental madman" business? And if it was perfectly safe, why did they bar it in the first place?"  
  
"I don't know, Gourry," Zelgadis replied with a sigh, pulling back the blanket and sheet and climbing under the covers, "but try to forget about it, alright?"  
  
"Aw, c'mon, Zel."  
  
"Gourry, look. You mentioned the uneasy sensation that something really stupid was going to happen before we got out of here. Now, if you go play detective and try to investigate that room, the chances of it happening are increased tenfold. If, on the other hand, you just forget it and go calmly and sensibly to sleep, it decreases. Do you see the pattern?"  
  
"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Gourry admitted, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Thanks, Zelgadis."  
  
"No problem," the pile of covers replied in Zelgadis' voice. Then the pile of covers made an irritated noise, again in Zel's voice, as a soft knock sounded at the door. Gourry climbed to his feet and swung the door open.  
  
"Hi, Meg," he greeted the small dancer with a liberal armful of pillows and blankets.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Gabriev. Here are you blankets. Goodnight!"  
  
"Yeah, g'night," Gourry replied cheerfully, glancing briefly after her as the bubble of light cast by her lamp grew smaller. Turning to re-enter his room, he halted suddenly as something caught his eye. 'Hmm...that door's open. I guess that Firmin guy mustn't have shut it earlier,' he thought, then shrugged. 'I guess I'll go do it.'  
  
The swordsman had barely taken a step from the doorway of his own room, however, when the talking pile of blankets spoke up again.  
  
"Gourry!" it called. "You're staying away from the room across the hall, right?"  
  
"Oh! Uh, yeah," Gourry called back, jumping guiltily back into the room. With a shrug, he shut the door to their own room and set about preparing for slumber.  
  
  
  
'Oh, bother,' Meg lamented silently, 'I don't believe I remembered to close the door to Christine's dressing-room.'  
  
Thus was it always still, always would be known to the young woman. She turned on her heel and crept back down the hallway. As she approached the door, some of the more frightening stories of the Phantom came back to haunt her...so to speak.  
  
Now, Meg was a rational girl...sometimes. She knew, logically, that nothing bad could possibly come of her being near enough to the room to shut the door. After all, no one had heard from the enigmatic tenant of the depths of the opera house in several years. It was exceedingly unlikely that he would return just at the moment that she, Meg, decided to close the door. And even if he did, what could possibly anger him about the simple act? Nothing!  
  
Of course not! Meg knew all of this. But recalling the truth and logic of certain facts is much easier during broad daylight, or when one is alone in one's own safe, lamp-lit room, than when one is creeping down a long, dark silent hallway in the dead of night, lurking just outside a room with which a frighteningly intelligent and severely misanthropic Phantom was closely associated.  
  
Thus, Meg felt no shame in the sudden increase in tempo of her heartbeat, in her palms becoming so clammy that she was hard pressed not to drop her lamp and end everyone's life in a blazing fire, in her breath coming in shorter gasps the closer she came to that accursed door.  
  
Almost there...just one more step and she could nudge it closed, then go calmly and sensibly to be. Perhaps she could even be so lucky as to get a few hours of sleep tonight. Slowly, she raised her foot, reaching toward the door - and stumbled back as a soft squeak of bedsprings in a nearby room, which was the chilling and maniacal laughter of a dangerous madman in her ears, sounded nearby. Stifling a scream, she leapt from her prone position on the floor and bolted down the hallway as swiftly as years and years of ballet training would let her.  
  
In the hallway, the still-open door to the mysterious dressing room creaked softly as it swung slightly to and fro. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
  
  
"Oh, Giry, you little fool," Meg muttered to herself, breathing deeply to still the racing of her heart. "Why did you run away like the coward you are? What ever did you think would happen? Nothing! Nothing was going to happen! You are simply an idiot! A ridiculous idiot is what you are! You were never in any danger. You'd no reason to take to your heels in such a - EEP!"  
  
Her muttering rose into a startled shriek as a hand reached out and seized her shoulder, dragging her roughly through a door into a warmly-lit room.  
  
"Hey, Meg, what's your problem?" a small red-head demanded, laughing.  
  
"Yes, Miss Meg, you look like you've seen a ghost," a small dark-haired girl added, concern in her eyes at the dancer's ashen face and wide eyes.  
  
"Miss Lina! Miss Amelia!" she gasped. "Thank goodness!"  
  
Lina raised an eyebrow, sending Amelia a questioning glance. She shook her head, telegraphing her confusion and worry back to the sorceress. Lina took Meg's shoulder gently.  
  
"Maybe you'd better sit down. What on earth happened to you, anyway?"  
  
"Well.oh, it's so silly! I was a little goose to be so badly frightened by something so small. You see, I was in the hallway, taking your friend some blankets, and I heard a noise. I...I thought for a moment that it was the Phantom come to murder me," she finished, blushing and smiling self- deprecatingly.  
  
"Um...Phantom? What Phantom?" Amelia choked out nervously.  
  
"Oh! It is rather a long story, and I certainly don't know it all very well, but would you like to hear what I can tell?" Meg gazed at the small princess, awaiting her answer.  
  
Amelia considered for a moment, then nodded, leaning forward eagerly. Meg took a deep breath.  
  
"Alright, here's what I know. Oh, I'm almost afraid to tell it! If I should get a fact wrong, and he should hear me...what am I talking about?! This is the story, such as I know it..."  
  
  
  
[One very interesting and chilling recount of the events in POTO later.]  
  
  
  
"Oh!" Amelia sniffed, eyes wide. "How beautiful! A man, cruelly rejected by the world, but with a miraculous gift, his love for a beautiful young singer doomed from the start, seeing the light at the very last, and setting free the one he loves most!"  
  
"Uh...yeah," Lina replied, glancing warily at her dark-haired friend. "More creepy than beautiful, if you ask me. You're beginning to sound like Martina, you know."  
  
"Oh, Miss Lina," Amelia sighed, "you have no sense of romance. Don't you see how gallant it was of him simply let her walk away with another man when it must have torn his heart out to do it?"  
  
"Yeah, whatever, Amelia," Lina replied. Then she turned to Meg, her eyebrow raised. "So, how do you know all about what happened at the last, anyway?"  
  
"Well," Meg began guiltily, glancing nervously about the room, "I sort of...arrived ahead of the mob, but I couldn't find my way in. I heard what was happening, but I couldn't call to them, warn them."  
  
"Oh, Meg, I don't understand how you can be afraid of anyone who could do something so just." The young woman clasped her hands, her eyes growing starry.  
  
"It's fairly simple, really," Meg replied, smiling briefly. "He let Christine go for her own sake. It had nothing to do with the Vicomte."  
  
"So...?" Lina prompted.  
  
"So, he did it because he cared for her. He made no such considerations for anyone he didn't care for. He did it out of love, not out of justice."  
  
"Love and justice go hand in hand," Amelia declared staunchly.  
  
"Not if you're the Phantom of the Opera, eh, Meg?" Lina caught Meg's eye. The dancer smiled weakly.  
  
"I wish now that we hadn't spoken quite so freely," she admitted, her gaze searching the darker corners of the room once again.  
  
"That's right, Meg," Lina smirked. "The very walls have ears."  
  
"It often seems like it in this place," Meg replied ruefully. Lina waved her comment off.  
  
"Oh, come on! Let's eat some chocolate and forget about it!"  
  
"Oh!" Meg slapped her hand to her head. "I forgot the chocolate in my own room! I'll just run out and get it."  
  
She stood and walked to the door, then hesitated.  
  
"What's up, Meg?" Lina asked.  
  
"Erm...nothing, nothing at all. It's just..."  
  
"It's just what?" Amelia prompted.  
  
"It is very dark out there, and I'm still a little shaky, and..."  
  
"Meg," Lina interrupted dryly. "Do you want one of us to go with you?"  
  
  
  
"Thank you for coming with me, Amelia," Meg whispered gratefully to the small Seyruun princess as they crept noiselessly down the silent, velvet- enshrouded hallway.  
  
"Not at all, Meg," Amelia whispered back with a smile. "I understand completely. I don't think I'd want to be all alone in this place at night."  
  
"I believe your friend thinks I was being silly," Meg mused ruefully.  
  
"Oh, Miss Lina!" Amelia scoffed. "Pay no attention to her. She laughs at everyone else for being scared, but that's only because she doesn't let anything scare her noticeably."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure things must scare her," Meg protested.  
  
"Yes. Slugs. Any insects, actually."  
  
Meg shivered.  
  
"I can relate. I hate bugs, too."  
  
"...Meg?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"What hallway did you say that your friend Christine's old dressing room was in?"  
  
"Erm...why, I believe it was this one."  
  
"You said that the door to it was always locked and barred?"  
  
"Why, yes..."  
  
"Then it would be rather unusual if, say, the wooden boards were lying in splinters on the floor and the door was standing wide open?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look."  
  
Meg glanced in the direction that the princess indicated, then laughed in relief.  
  
"Oh, the boards are off because Monsieur Firmin removed them earlier when he offered one of your friends this room. After Monsieur Firmin left, I advised them to share a room." Then a frown chased the laughter from Meg's face. "Although, it is odd that the door is still open. I know I closed it."  
  
Amelia gasped. "Do you suppose that Gourry and Zelgadis went in? What if the Phantom has returned and done something to them?!"  
  
Meg's eyes widened.  
  
"Oh, my goodness! But...why would he have?"  
  
"Surely he would have been angered at someone venturing into a room that he declared should never be tampered with! We must go in and look for Mr. Gourry and Mr. Zelgadis!"  
  
"I...I don't think that's a good idea..."  
  
"What else can we do?"  
  
"They might not have gone in..."  
  
"But, Meg, you said you closed the door! If they didn't go in, some other poor soul did! We can't just leave them at the mercy of this mysterious Phantom!"  
  
"I may have just forgotten to close the door..."  
  
"You said you clearly remember closing it!"  
  
"It really isn't so clear. In fact, now it all seems rather fuzzy. I likely did simply forget to close the door."  
  
"Oh, that sounds awfully unlikely to me! We must go in and rescue the poor soul that has fallen prey to the Phantom!"  
  
"But Amelia, it's ridiculous! We aren't prepared to fight, or even to run very, very fast. We can't just go charging in there!"  
  
"But we must! We don't have time to prepare. Our comrades are in danger! We must bravely venture in and rescue them! For the sake of JUSTICE!!!"  
  
If she had been able, Meg certainly would have sweatdropped at the dramatic pose that Amelia had assumed.  
  
"YOUR comrades are in danger," she muttered under her breath.  
  
"What was that?" Amelia demanded.  
  
"Oh...nothing at all," Meg assured her.  
  
"No, I heard you! Well, if you don't want to come with me, that's just fine. But I am going to go in." Amelia crossed her arms and fixed Meg with an icy look.  
  
Meg sighed in defeat.  
  
"Is there really nothing I can do to dissuade you?"  
  
"Nothing." Amelia set her jaw firmly. Meg threw up her hands in exasperation.  
  
"Then I suppose I must go with you."  
  
A huge smile broke over Amelia's face, and she engulfed Meg in a warm hug.  
  
"Oh, thank-you, Meg! I know I'd do the same for you if it were your friends!"  
  
"Yes, well, the next time my friends wander blindly into the lair of a madman supposedly gone for the last four years, I shall take you up on that."  
  
Sharing a mutual smile, the girls crept into the room, slowly closing the door behind them.  
  
  
  
A few seconds later, a faint sound emanated from the closed door of something heavy sliding against something solid and stopping with a click, accompanied by two small exclamations of surprise. "Well, let's go in!" one of the voices insisted. "For JUSTICE!"  
  
"Ooooh," the other moaned in despair. "Shall I get out of this alive?" 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
  
  
Lina flinched as a massive crack of thunder resounded through the air, shaking, she was certain, the very foundations of this grand, rather massive establishment.  
  
Perhaps Lina did not put her ponderings quite into these words. Perhaps it was something more Lina-ish, something along the lines of,  
  
'Dammit! If this thunder keeps up, this whole place is gonna shake down! And Amelia and Meg aren't even back with the chocolate yet!'  
  
As this last thought might have chased its way through her brain, a frown wrinkled her brow. Gazing absently at the driving rain pelting against the glass of the window, she shook her head. What on earth could be keeping those two? How long could it possibly take to get chocolate, anyway?  
  
With an irritated sigh, she crawled from her cot, hauling herself to her feet.  
  
'Knowing Amelia, she's probably got herself into some kind of trouble, and dragged that poor Meg girl along with her. Well, I guess I'd better go find them; after all, I don't want my chocolate to get hurt!'  
  
Shuddering in horror at the mere thought, Lina threw on her cape, shoulder guards, gloves, and boots, and set off into the long, darkened, winding hallways of the opera house.  
  
As she shut the door behind her with a soft click, another clap of thunder, more intense this time, rang out above the building. Startled, she jumped involuntarily, not quite able to hold back a startled screech.  
  
'Eheh...maybe I'll stop by and pick up the guys,' she reflected, taking a deep breath to slow her suddenly-racing heart.  
  
  
  
"Zelgadis?"  
  
"Gourry, go to sleep," the chimera commanded sternly, if very, very sleepily from the cot across the room.  
  
"I heard something. I wondered if it was you."  
  
An irritated grumble as the sound repeated itself.  
  
"No, Gourry, it was the door. Someone seems to be knocking."  
  
"Oh! I'll get it."  
  
"Fine. And I'll stay here and sleep."  
  
"I knew I could count on you, Zelgadis," Gourry chuckled, springing to his feet and swinging the door open. "Lina?"  
  
"Lina?" the pile of blankets perched on the cot echoed.  
  
"Hey, guys," the sorceress greeted both with a self-deprecating grin, scratching the back of her head.  
  
"Lina, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?"  
  
"Where's Amelia?" the blankets demanded.  
  
"Zel, would you just come out already? I can barely hear you under there!" Lina told him, annoyed.  
  
"Fine," the chimera huffed, throwing back the blankets and climbing from the cot. "So, why are you here?"  
  
"Actually, I'm looking for Amelia and Meg. I sent them to get chocolate a while ago, but they haven't come back yet. I was kinda hoping they'd be here."  
  
"Why would they have come here?" Gourry wondered, scratching his head.  
  
"Well, I figured that Amelia would consider it 'unjust' to eat all the chocolate by ourselves without sharing with you, and..."  
  
"Lina," Zelgadis interrupted, climbing from the cot and crossing his arms with a small smirk, "that's a pretty weak excuse."  
  
"Oh, fine!" the petite redhead exploded, throwing up her arms. "I went to look for them, but I got a little spooked."  
  
"So...why did you come here?" Gourry inquired slowly.  
  
With an impatient roll of her eyes, Lina smacked him upside the head.  
  
"You yogurt-for brains! I was afraid of the storm!"  
  
Gourry's eyes softened at this, and he put a comforting arm around her shoulders...which, after an angry glare in his direction, she determinedly shoved away.  
  
Zelgadis sighed and crossed his arms more decidedly. It was, he decided, far too late to be awake.  
  
"Look, you two, it is far too late to be awake," he informed them, somewhat lacking in imagination, due to the aforementioned fatigue, "and I would much rather not be. So, Lina, if you need us to come with you to find Amelia, can we please get started?"  
  
"And Meg," Lina reminded him with a sly grin.  
  
"Uh...what?"  
  
"Amelia AND Meg. You said, if I needed you to help me find Amelia. I'm just reminding you that you forgot Meg."  
  
"Right, right," he sighed, colouring slightly beneath the wide grins of a sorceress and a swordsman. "And Meg. Now, can we go?"  
  
With that, he stepped carefully around two and out the door.  
  
"Uh..." Gourry began slowly, coming to a stop behind him just outside the door of their room. "Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm pretty sure that door was closed before."  
  
"Are...you sure?" Zelgadis asked hesitantly, peering through the darkness, eyes narrowed.  
  
"Yeah, pretty sure," the blond replied, frowning.  
  
"Someone probably just closed it as they were going past," Lina hypothesized with a shrug.  
  
Gourry shook his head.  
  
"Yeah, I'd say that, too, but...Zelgadis, what did Meg say about everyone keeping away from this door?"  
  
"She said several times that we should stay away from that room, and Firmin mentioned something about a 'sentimental madman,'" the chimera replied.  
  
"I...I wonder if that was the Phantom," Lina spoke up uneasily.  
  
"The...Phantom," Zelgadis repeated, his tone indicating that, had one bothered to look, an eyebrow would have been raised.  
  
"Yeah...if this is the room that Meg told me about, it belonged to a singer named Christine. She was beautiful, and a mysterious man known as the Phantom of the Opera living beneath the opera house was infatuated with her."  
  
"A silly folk-tale," Zelgadis scoffed. "Nothing more."  
  
"Meg tells me that she was there after he kidnapped Christine. She followed them down to his lair to warn them about a mob coming to kill him."  
  
"Wow," Gourry laughed uneasily. "Meg's sure got...uh...an imagination."  
  
"Imagination or no," Zelgadis put in impatiently, "she obviously believes it. I don't think she could have feigned the sort of terror she showed at the thought of Firmin putting one of us in that room. That said, I don't think she would have set foot in that room for anything."  
  
Lina smirked.  
  
"No, you're right. Meg wouldn't have gone in there. But remember, Zel, Amelia was with her."  
  
"Oh, Gods..." Zelgadis groaned in despair. "Well, let's go."  
  
"Hold on," Gourry interrupted, holding up a hand. "What does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"Gourry," Lina began, "what is the one word you would use to describe Amelia?"  
  
"Rich," Gourry replied immediately.  
  
"Besides that!"  
  
"Happy."  
  
"Try again."  
  
"Just."  
  
"Keep going."  
  
"Uh...VERY rich?"  
  
"INSANE!" Lina howled, quite fed up with standing in a darkened corridor in the middle of the night, particularly outside of the former dressing room of a madman's obsession.  
  
"Oh, right!" Gourry exclaimed, a nearly visible light breaking over his face.  
  
"I'm glad we're on the same page," Lina commented dryly. "Now, what does that mean?"  
  
"Uh...um...er...uh..."  
  
"It means that the first thing she'd do is go in there to explore!"  
  
"Yeah! That's a really good point."  
  
Another impatient sigh from Zelgadis.  
  
"Now that we all understand," he began coolly, "what do you say we go in to investigate, find Amelia, and hopefully get some sleep tonight?"  
  
"And Meg," Gourry added, his grin even wider than previously.  
  
"What?" Zelgadis sighed wearily.  
  
"Find Amelia AND Meg."  
  
An irritated noise from Zelgadis echoed through the darkness as Lina stepped forward to carefully ease open the door, a readied fireball flickering in her other hand. Gourry's hand flew to the hilt of the Sword of Light, and Zelgadis reached for the hilt of his own weapon.  
  
The tension in the air was palpable as the door creaked open, ever so slowly...a little more...a little more...  
  
Lina breathed a sigh of relief, letting the fireball flicker out of existence as it became clear that nothing was going to welcome them to the room by leaping out at them and dig sharp, pointy teeth into their necks and such. Then, as a though occurred to her, she chanted another spell, and the next minute, the faint glow from an orb of light held in her hand cut the darkness, casting eerie shadows about the room.  
  
Hands still hovering near their weapons in case the opportunity should present itself to use them, Gourry and Zelgadis crept into the room behind her, glancing furtively about.  
  
The room was a tiny one, making the rooms given to them seem palatial by comparison, and from what they could see through the enshrouding darkness, the furniture shabby and limited to a dressing table, a stool, and a couch. All in all, a first glance about the room didn't seem to present anything out of the ordinary. On the second, however, Gourry stopped still as something caught his attention.  
  
"Hey, guys, do you think a giant, gaping hole in the wall means anything?"  
  
"What?!" Lina exclaimed, bouncing over to him, followed closely by a less bouncy Zelgadis. All three gazed for a time at the long, oblong opening in the wall, and the mirror standing aside from it.  
  
"A secret passageway behind the mirror?" Zelgadis sighed, rolling his eyes. "What a terrible cliché."  
  
"Cliché or not, Zel," Lina smirked, "I think we may have found what we're looking for. I mean, why would the owners have just boarded the room up with the mirror still open?"  
  
"I don't know; why do people drive on parkways and park on driveways?" Zelgadis, in a frightening show of anachronism, demanded, arms crossed.  
  
"Oh, shut up, Zel! Look, they wouldn't have. That means, Amelia and Meg could have been snooping around in here, and Amelia could have pretty much stumbled onto this passage."  
  
"Meg might've opened it, too," Gourry spoke up, uncertain if it was in defence of his young friend or not.  
  
Lina shook her head sceptically.  
  
"Maybe, but we all know that Amelia has a talent for happening on things like this."  
  
"True," Zelgadis conceded, nodding, a small smile playing about the corners of his mouth.  
  
"So, naturally, they accidentally opened the mirror, and went to explore."  
  
"Naturally."  
  
"Only Amelia," Gourry sighed.  
  
"Alright; now that we know what happened, let's go!" Lina suggested, stepping boldly through the opening in the wall and starting down the long passageway. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Note: If you are one of the over-serious Erik fans that I find glaringly annoying, and as such cannot stand the thought of him in any ridiculous situation, I warn you to stop reading now. Over the course of this chapter, he will sustain several embarrassing injuries at the hands of two young girls. For the rest of you, enjoy, as it is always quite hilarious to see a very dignified character stripped of all dignity. Why, just look at the fun the creators of Slayers had with Zelgadis! ^_^  
  
---------------------------------  
  
When he looked back upon the incident in previous years, Erik, the acclaimed and feared Phantom of the Opera, would have been hard-pressed to tell you exactly where all of this had began.  
  
Here he was, though, on his back against the freezing stone of the floor, the wind quite effectively knocked out of him, staring up in to the wild, nearly hysterical face of Meg Giry, a young ballet girl for the opera house in which he made his home, who was apparently more highly skilled in the area of self-defence than the other ballet brats, and whose firm, lithe form straddling him, pinning him effectively to the ground, was really beginning to make him reconsider this whole 'pining eternally for Christine' bit.  
  
His thoughts were blessedly derailed before he could embarrass himself when another voice called frantically from down the corridor.  
  
"Meg! I heard a scream! What happened?"  
  
"Amelia! I've found him! The Phantom!"  
  
"Oh, no! Meg!"  
  
The next moment, Meg was pulled off of him, and through a shower of stars, Erik found himself lying facedown on the floor with a small foot, clad in a mint-green boot, deeply embedded in his ribs.  
  
"Foul fiend!" the same voice shrieked at our bewildered Phantom. "How dare you try to attack Meg?! Picking on someone smaller than you is utterly unjust!"  
  
"Picking on Meg? Who exactly is attacking whom?" Erik demanded, prying the foot from his side and sitting up dizzily. He rubbed the sharp pain radiating out through his solar plexus, its origin about the size of a small fist. More exactly, Meg's small fist. He glanced up at her with a slight smile. "I am impressed, Little Giry. Element of surprise or no, it isn't every young girl who could take down Erik with one blow."  
  
"Er-er, I apologize, Monsieur," Meg squeaked, now shaking uncontrollably. "You startled me, is all."  
  
"Yes, you startled me as well, my dear."  
  
"Silence, villain!" Amelia barked, assuming a pose. "We are down here in search of our friends, who we believe you have abducted!"  
  
Erik rose unsteadily and raised an eyebrow behind his mask, the beginnings of a smile forming on the side of his mouth not covered by that same mask.  
  
"Your friends?" he echoed. "Can you describe these friends of yours for me? You see, child, I abduct enough people over the course of a day that I am not always certain which ones which staunch hero is in search of."  
  
Amelia scowled darkly at the tall caped man, suspecting that she was being made fun of.  
  
Meg, however, did not share this suspicion, and instead suppressed a frightened whimper.  
  
"Please, Monsieur, if Amelia's friends have come down here, will you let them go?"  
  
He turned to glare at her, reflecting quite untruthfully that it always annoyed him to see people terrified of him. On any other day, Erik might have told you, immediately before disposing of your corpse neatly and efficiently, that he delighted in the frightened screams of those damned ballet brats when they were startled by loud noises in dark corridors.  
  
"And why, pray tell, Little Giry, should I do that?"  
  
"Because a lady asks you," Amelia replied immediately and smugly.  
  
Erik let out a bark of laughter.  
  
"A lady?! And exactly which one of you claims to be that? The little brat poking her nose into my business when she knows exactly how I hate to have my home invaded, or the little brat proving herself to be an ignorant, loud- mouthed chit?"  
  
"Ignorant?!" Amelia repeated, her back up in an instant. "The only truly ignorant creature I see here is you, Phantom! You, who pay no mind to justice, and simply kidnap innocent girls and threaten to murder the men that they love! How utterly evil!"  
  
"Oh, no," Meg sighed, bidding this mortal coil a melancholy farewell as Erik stiffened at these words.  
  
"Little Giry," he began, his visible eye - and presumably the not visible as well - narrowing, "have you not told your new friend here of the inadvisability of angering me?"  
  
"Y-yes, Monsieur," the tiny dancer choked out nervously.  
  
"Perhaps you weren't clear enough?"  
  
"I-I think I was as clear as I could have been, Monsieur."  
  
"Perhaps mere word-of-mouth is not how this young lady learns? Perhaps I ought to apply the lesson in a way that more suits her style of learning?"  
  
"Oh, Monsieur, please don't harm her!" Meg pleaded breathlessly.  
  
"I doubt he could," Amelia murmured airily, her head held high.  
  
"Harm her?" Erik echoed, seeming not to have heard the tiny princess. "I was simply talking about performing a short puppet show, detailing my tragic story."  
  
"A...puppet show?" Meg echoed. Oh, the poor man HAD lost his mind alone down here these years!  
  
"Of course not!" he scoffed. "How silly!"  
  
Meg blinked.  
  
"Er...what?"  
  
"I suspect, child, that you do not take me as seriously as you should."  
  
"But...Monsieur, you just finished saying that you intended to show Amelia a puppet show detailing your tragic story."  
  
Erik scowled darkly at her.  
  
"I most certainly did not! Ridiculous!"  
  
"But...I...you...but...ow," Meg whimpered, one hand to her head as she reflected that life really had become too complex at last.  
  
"I...don't believe we've met," Erik was meanwhile saying, extending a hand toward the small, dark-haired princess. "I am Erik. And you?"  
  
"Amelia Wil Teslea de Seyruun," she replied coolly, taking his hand politely. After all, one had to show the necessary courtesies, even to villains, if one didn't want one's kingdom put to shame.  
  
"Quite an extensive name for one so small and ignorant," he commented lightly.  
  
Amelia glared, not quite sure she approved of the faintly mocking tone of the man's admittedly very beautiful voice.  
  
"And your name is properly short. Don't villains who stand against justice like to keep their names short? The better to have word spread of their misdeeds against humanity. Isn't that so, Erik?"  
  
"Indeed," he agreed coldly. "Perhaps I should give you something to carry word of back to wherever it is you have come."  
  
Meg gasped in horror, and then proceeded to quite effectively lose her head.  
  
"Amelia, look out!" she shrieked, uncertain of what she was warning the other girl of, as no signs of instant death had shown themselves up or down the dark corridor. Still, Meg reflected, it was always better to be on the safe side.  
  
"Elmekia Lance!" Amelia cried, preparing the spell, aiming it, and letting it loose at the tall, gaunt figure, the unmasked side of whose expression was now registering confusion and slight nervousness.  
  
----------------------------------  
  
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"Hey! What was that?" Gourry exclaimed as a bright flash of light sparked into and out of existence far down the hallway.  
  
"I don't know, but it sounded like Amelia," Zelgadis replied, breaking into a run.  
  
"Wow...the poor Phantom," Gourry sighed in despair.  
  
"Don't say that yet, Gourry," Zelgadis called dryly over his shoulder. "He hasn't made Lina angry yet."  
  
"Hey! What are you trying to say, Zel?" Lina demanded angrily, hands on her hips.  
  
"Uh...nothing," Zelgadis hastened to assure her, seeing his life pass before him as a familiar glint, which he had secretly taken to calling the 'Dragonslave Imminent,' flashed into her eye.  
  
"That's what I thought," she smirked, jogging after Gourry.  
  
-------------------------------  
  
-------------------------------  
  
"Oh, no," Amelia sighed. "I think I've killed him."  
  
Meg gasped.  
  
"Oh, Amelia, I don't think he could be killed so easily. But you've probably made him angry. Whatever will we do when he wakes up and decides to come after us?"  
  
"Don't worry, Meg," Amelia said consolingly. "Miss Lina will take care of him."  
  
"But how shall we FIND Miss Lina?" Meg sighed.  
  
"I don't think it'll be too hard, Meg," a voice called, laughing, from down the corridor.  
  
"Miss Lina!" Amelia exclaimed, hurling herself at the older girl.  
  
"Hey, Amelia," Lina greeted cheerfully. "We heard yelling and things exploding."  
  
"And since Lina was with us, and Martina isn't even here, we figured it must be you," Gourry added, smiling warmly at the tiny princess.  
  
"But...why couldn't it be Miss Filia?" Amelia asked, frowning.  
  
"Amelia!" Zelgadis admonished. "Continuity! Filia won't join us until next season."  
  
"Oh, right," Amelia laughed sheepishly. "How silly of me."  
  
At this point, both of them happened to glance up and notice the curious and confused glances trained on them.  
  
"U-um, guys," Lina began hesitantly. "Who's Filia?"  
  
"Er, never mind. It's nothing," Zelgadis hastened to assure her. Then he turned to Amelia and muttered, "We've got to stop looking ahead in the script."  
  
"Yeah," Amelia agreed sadly.  
  
"Ooh..." the unmoving form of the feared Opera Ghost groaned as it began to twitch slightly. "What happened?"  
  
Then, as he managed to struggle into a sitting position, he caught sight of Amelia and glared frostily at her.  
  
"Oh, yes, of course. I recall now. The little chit with the loud mouth threw some sort of firecracker at me."  
  
Amelia returned the glare with equal coldness.  
  
"It wasn't a firecracker. It was simply the conquering fist of justice...and, you know, an Elmekia Lance."  
  
"Oh, brother," Lina groaned. "Look, you two, what were you doing down here in the first place?  
  
"We came down here to find Mr. Zelgadis and Mr. Gourry, because we thought they had been kidnapped by the Phantom!" Amelia proclaimed proudly. Then she frowned, confused. "So, why are you down here, Miss Lina?"  
  
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Lina exclaimed, exasperated, turning away from the rest of the group and rubbing her forehead wearily. "We just came down here because we knew you'd be wandering around, snooping into things that you probably shouldn't, and we didn't want you to get into trouble. But now that we found you, and you know the guys haven't been kidnapped, can we just get out of here?"  
  
"I think not," Erik informed her smoothly.  
  
Lina whirled about to behold the masked man, who had apparently managed to stand, with Amelia slung over one shoulder and Meg slung over the other. Smirking, he continued.  
  
"You see, I had never thought of kidnapping anyone. But, with all this talk of it, it seems appealing. So, I think I shall. If any of you wants to get these two young ladies back, you must navigate your way through the - OW!"  
  
His dramatic speech was cut abruptly and tragically short as Amelia's foot connected roughly with his stomach for the second time that day. Acting entirely on instinct - to get the hurty thing as far from his as possible, as quickly as possible - he hurled her across the corridor, and, as luck would have it, right into Zelgadis.  
  
"Ow!" Amelia shrieked as she bounced off of the stony young man and to the floor.  
  
"Amelia!" he exclaimed, kneeling and helping her carefully to her feet.  
  
"Ahem," Erik called, annoyed. "As I was saying, if any of you wants to get this one nice young lady back - every good plan needs room for improvisation, after all, and that little one seemed more trouble than she was worth - you must first navigate your way through a series of traps that I have lain out for you throughout this opera house. Farewell, my dear adventurers! And good luck!"  
  
With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, the explosion mingling with Meg's shriek of terror, and the four stood in a pitch-dark corridor, staring helplessly about them.  
  
Lina looked at Amelia...or in her best approximation of Amelia's direction, given the pitch-darkness about them. Amelia looked at Zelgadis. Zelgadis looked at Gourry. Gourry scratched his head.  
  
"Uh...is that a bad thing?"  
  
"Of course it's a bad thing, you yogurt-for-brains! Now we have to go rescue Meg!" Lina groaned in despair. "How could things get any worse?"  
  
Ah, Lina, you foolish beautiful young sorcery genius! Little do you know that you have single-handedly just brought peril, destruction, and unparalleled silliness down upon you and your friends, as well as setting up the rest of the plot, which, in a Rhianwen-tale, is never a good thing.  
  
The instant the fatal phrase was out of Lina's mouth, a cloud of mist rose up to envelop our staunch adventurers.  
  
"Whew...I don't feel so good all of a sudden," Amelia noted, wobbling dizzily.  
  
"It's just your imagination," Lina would have doubtlessly told the younger girl, had she not chosen that moment to slump forward to the cold grey stone in a dead faint, followed quickly by Amelia.  
  
"Uh...Lina? Amelia?" Gourry called tentatively. He knelt next to the impromptu doggie-pile and poked Amelia gently in the side. "Hey. Hey. Hey- hey. Hey." Then he stopped and frowned. "Why does this feel familiar?"  
  
He had little time to wonder, though, as the next moment, a loud crash rang out behind him.  
  
"What was that?!" he exclaimed, whirling about. He groped blindly through the darkness until his hand hit something rocky. "Oh, no! Zelgadis, too?! This is horrible! NOW what do I do?"  
  
This proved not to be an issue for Gourry, however, as the next moment, he, too, slumped forward to the ground, nearly impaling himself on Zelgadis' hair as he fell.  
  
And throughout the corridor rang a gleeful, maniacal laugh.  
  
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End Notes: Hee! Plot! I don't believe it! Plot? In a Rhianwen-fic? ^_^ Anyway, I muchly apologize for taking so bloody long to get this chapter posted. The rest should come much more quickly now, as we've entered the fun part: the part where I can turn it Erik/Meg 'shippery. [Blush] I do hope I haven't just alienated any readers by saying - er, typing - that out loud. ^_^ Long live fluffy romance! Of course, the fluffy shall be reserved for Lina/Gourry and Amelia/Zelgadis. I just can't make Erik and Meg be fluffy and romantic without abandoning all characterization that I haven't already.  
  
Anyway, thanks for reading! [Waves cheerily, then bounces away to consume ridiculous amounts of sugar and caffeine] 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

---------------------------------------

   "Ooh..." Lina groaned painfully as she struggled to sit up. "What happened?"

   "My best guess is that we were knocked out with some sort of drug," Zelgadis replied from beneath Gourry. "Uh...Gourry...if it wouldn't be too much trouble..."

   "Oh, sorry, Zelgadis," Gourry laughed, hauling himself to his feet.

Zelgadis suppressed an irritated and pained groan as the swordsman's foot connected with his head.

   "Ouch!" Gourry shouted, clutching his foot as pain from kicking a rock radiated through it.

   "Foul fiend who preys on the innocent! Prepare to taste the wrath of the Pacifist Crush!"

This ill-timed shout drew the attention of the other three. Lina sighed, half in irritation, half in dismay, and half in fondness, as Lina had never claimed to be a mathematician, at the sight of Amelia sitting bolt upright briefly to deliver her speech, before flopping back down and cuddling the end of her cape, her nap never disturbed for a moment.

   "Great," she sighed. "So, what do we do?"

   "It seems to me that this 'Erik' must be out of practice with this whole villain thing," Zelgadis said with a wry smile. "All we have to do is leave the basement the way we came, and go for the law."

Gourry, who had been taking a moment to walk around, just to see if such a thing could be done, now came to a rest next to Zelgadis, Lina, and the still-asleep Amelia.

   "Uh, Zelgadis?" he ventured, quite relieved that _someone_, at least, seemed to have a plan of action, and hoping that the rather odd thing he had noticed about their surroundings wouldn't hinder what seemed to him to be a good plan indeed.

Zelgadis turned to the taller man.

   "Yes, Gourry?"

   "Was the basement on a roof before?"

   "What?!" Lina exclaimed, leaping to her feet and deciding that Amelia could just wake herself up. She stared about her helplessly, noticing for the first time that there was a lot more wind, and a far better view of the stars and the full moon – she shivered slightly, wondering if this were some sort of omen, as if they didn't have enough to worry about – than the basement had held. "Oh, great. Does anyone know the way off of the roof?"

   "The roof?" Amelia repeated, rubbing her forehead as she sat up dizzily. "Weren't we in the basement a minute ago?"

Lina gritted her teeth, managing with some effort to be patient with her friend, who had missed the last few minutes by being asleep.

   "Yes, Amelia, we were in the basement before."

Amelia nodded, accepting this easily, possibly as a result of still being half asleep.

   "Okay. I thought so." Then she blinked. "So, how did we get up to the roof?"

   "I'm guessing that Phantom guy brought us up here," Gourry replied casually. 

Lina, Zelgadis, and Amelia nodded in agreement, and then Lina came to a dead halt.

   "Hey, hold on just a minute here! How do I know what a crazy old man like that did with my innocent young body on the way up?! Oh, he's gonna die!"

   "Don't worry, Lina," Zelgadis said with a slight smirk. "As I recall from the story, our Phantom seems to believe that gentlemen prefer blondes. And gentle, sweet, ladylike ones at that. So you certainly have nothing to worry about."

   "What's that supposed to mean?" Lina demanded, her eye twitching slightly. "And before you answer, remember that we're on a roof right now."

   "Yeah, speaking of that," Gourry interjected, whether with the simple good timing that dumb luck achieves every now and again, or deliberately trying to head off the untimely death of Zelgadis, "how are we gonna get off this roof?"

   "Why don't we just use the door?" Amelia asked, reaching for the doorknob of a little door set into the brick wall at one end of the roof.

Lina watched in horror, and then leapt at the smaller girl.

   "No! Don't touch that!"

   "Oof!" Amelia intoned sadly as the two went sprawling over the hard, rough concrete of the roof. "Miss Lina! What was that for?"

   "Hey, you go and do a crazy thing like that, and I've got no choice," Lina replied angrily. "Seriously, Amelia, what were you thinking?"

   "Um…really, I was just thinking that we might be able to used the door to go into another room," Amelia replied with no thought of being sarcastic.

   "It seems reasonable enough to me," Gourry interjected with a shrug.

Lina shook her head impatiently.

   "No way! Amelia, haven't you ever read those novels?"

   "What novels?"

   "Oh, you know the kind," Lina replied, waving a hand exasperatedly. "The ones where the brave heroes wake up somewhere weird and it looks like the door is the way out. But the door is always trapped, and it's how the first victim always dies! Seems like your kind of book to me!"

   "If you mean those Gothic horror novels, Miss, Lina, I never read those," Amelia said airily. "Daddy thought they would make me weak-minded and melodramatic and give me nightmares, so he gave me a book of fairytales instead."

   "Suddenly, a lot of things make sense," Lina muttered, rubbing her forehead wearily. "Because, of course, a girl getting turned into sea-foam because the guy she likes doesn't like her back and she can't bring herself to stab him in the heart is a _lot_ better."

   "Oh, The Little Mermaid! Wasn't that story beautiful and romantic?" Amelia sighed, hands clasped and eyes shiny.

   "Uh…right. You're sounding like Martina again," Lina informed her, sweatdropping hugely. "Oh, well. At least she didn't say that about the one where the queen ate her stepchildren's flesh to stay young forever."

   "Never mind that," Zelgadis said, suppressing a grumble. "If we aren't using the door, Lina, what do you suggest we do instead?"

   "Look for another way out!"

Zelgadis looked at Gourry. Gourry looked at Amelia. Amelia looked at Zelgadis.

   "Sure," Amelia finally sighed. "It sounds so easy when she says it…"

Four hours of searching later proved substantially that the task of finding another way off a roof several stories from a deserted city street, when the door was off-limits, magic was useless, and nothing even remotely ladder-like was presenting itself for use, was easy _only_ in theory.

For the weary four had indeed discovered magic to be essentially useless the hard way, when Lina had climbed up onto a certain rather hideous statue, several feet high, and leapt off. The point of this was to see whether or not a levitation spell would work. The fact that she hadn't thought of just trying from where she stood may be seen as a testament to the strength of the drug that this mysterious Phantom character had used on the unfortunate group. 

Either way, this made Lina a very miserable girl for a while after, given that healing magic didn't seem to work any better than a levitation spell.

   "Look on the bright side, Miss Lina," Amelia had suggested. "At least you didn't try to jump off the roof."

Lina had shot Amelia a poisonous glare, crouched, and leapt, and soon after, Amelia had found herself every bit as miserable as Lina was.

By this point, though, everyone was more or less healthy again and still combing the roof inch by inch in hopes of discovering its secret.

   "Zel, would you stop punching the ground?" Lina pleaded, exasperated noticing the signs of a sizeable headache returning. "You sound like a kid in a temper tantrum."

   "I'm looking for a trap-door," he informed her coolly, not altogether liking this comparison. "One of these tiles has to be concealing something."

   "You've already checked all the tiles!"

   "Do you have any better ideas?"

   "Maybe Mr. Erik didn't leave us a way off," Amelia suggested, turning from her careful examination of the hideous statue that had earlier caused Lina so much pain.

   "Don't be silly, Amelia. What's the fun in that?"

   "I don't think this "Phantom" is worrying himself about whether we have fun or not," Zelgadis pointed out, rubbing his fist and pouting slightly. It didn't break the skin, but repeatedly punching concrete for half an hour did sting a little.

   "Not us, Zel. Him. It's no fun for him if he leaves us no way to get any farther than the roof. He seems to me like he's got a mad scientist type of mind."

   "Well, he's certainly mad, if nothing else," Amelia agreed.

   "Hey, maybe he's just a little annoyed," Gourry suggested.

After shooting him three incredulous looks, the rest of the group ignored this idea, leaving him to the task of leaning casually against different points of the wall. It seemed to Gourry that he had once before gotten them out of a somewhat similar situation of looking for a trapdoor using this method.

   "Anyway, the whole point of this is to see how far we get. We know he's got traps set up all through this building, right down to the basement we were in before. What would the point be of setting up all those traps, if we couldn't possibly get any farther than this?"

   "I suppose you're right, Miss Lina. But maybe he just forgot to add the way out? Really smart people can be really absent-minded about the weirdest things, you know."

   "Well, before we go complaining to the customer service board of the United Villains of Everywhere, we should probably check out every possibility," Lina said dryly. 

   "I still think we should try the door," Gourry informed everyone.

   "We know what you think, Gourry," Lina said through gritted teeth. "And if you want to risk your neck when there's probably a trap waiting for it, go ahead. Just don't get the rest of us involved."

Gourry shrugged.

   "Okay," he agreed, walking over to the door and tugging it open.

Lina, Zelgadis, and Amelia waited with bated breath.

Nothing happened.

Gourry closed the door and opened it again, thinking that perhaps he had caught the trap off-guard after four hours and it might be nice to give it another chance. 

Nothing happened.

   "I don't believe it!" Lina blustered, storming over to the door as Gourry started down the staircase that lay beyond, followed by Zelgadis. "We've been looking through ever speck of dirt on this roof for the way off, and the whole time, it was staring us in the face! Whose bright idea was it to leave the door alone anyway?" she demanded of no one in particular.

   "Yours," Amelia replied immediately, despite the fact that the question had not been addressed to her, as she was indeed someone in particular. 

   "Shut up!" Lina shot back. "Now, let's get outta here!" 

   "You mean, 'let's go to save Meg,'" Amelia corrected.

Lina shrugged.

   "Sure, whatever."

Amelia had just begun to launch into a speech concerning the necessity for greater loyalty to friends, even friends that one had just met, when an urgent shout drifted from the stairs.

   "Guys!"

   "What's up, Gourry?" Lina called back as the two girls started down slowly and carefully down the darkened staircase.

Both came instinctively to a halt as two eerily glowing eyes peered up at them from the bottom of the stairs, their glow outlining the silhouettes of the two men, swords already drawn.

   "Greetings, visitors," a deep voice, obviously that of a very old man, half-boomed and half-wheezed as he took a torch from his belt, struck it on the stone wall, and then next moment held the flaming object up. "It's been a long time since I've met anyone in these parts of the opera house."

   "Whoo, this gets a high creep-factor," Lina noted, eyeing the shadows that the torch cast over the man's leathery face.

   "Where are we, anyway?" Amelia asked hesitantly, glancing about the narrow, musty smelling hallway, its thin wooden floorboards covered by a rather threadbare old rug extending down to the door at the other end. 

   "Ah, a good question," the old man chuckled, brandishing a mop. "But a better question might be, 'shall you get out of here alive?'"

   "Yeah, that would be a good question, too," Gourry agreed, nodding thoughtfully.

Lina gave a groan of irritation.

   "Gourry! Never mind that," she commanded, pushing past the swordsman and glaring at the mop-wielding maniac. "FIREBALL!" 

The sense of relief and odd disappointment that filled the janitor must only be imagined when nothing happened.

   "Uh…Miss Lina…magic sealed," Amelia reminded her delicately.

Lina ground her teeth. Why was life so filled of this little annoyances?

   "Okay, Plan B. Gourry, you know what to do."

   "Right," Gourry agreed, that odd gleam flashing into his eye as he withdrew the Sword of Light.

[Five rather bloody seconds, deleted for reader protection, later…]

   "You know, Gourry," Zelgadis began, eyeing the bits of old man littering the hallway, "he might have just been a janitor working the night shift."

   "That's impossible," Amelia declared. "What innocent janitor has such evil, menacing dialogue?"

   "That was evil and menacing?" Gourry muttered to Lina.

   "Never mind," Lina said, rubbing her forehead. "Let's just get out of here. I'm sure the fun's just beginning."

Nodding their agreement, the group set off down the hallway and, upon reaching the door at the end, entered and started down the staircase that lay beyond with perhaps slightly less discretion than was strictly advisable.  

   "Ah, so you're finally here," the tall masked, caped man called smoothly from a shadowy corner of a large, grand room replete with gleaming black marble floors, tapestry-covered walls, and mirrored ceilings, as the four reached the bottom of the winding staircase. "How wonderful."

   "Yeah," Lina agreed. "Once we got the hang of opening a door and climbing down some stairs, your first test was no sweat."

   "There are little bits of that first guy everywhere up there!" Gourry added.

Erik blinked.

   "Er…'that guy'? I must ask, my friend, which 'guy' do you speak of?" 

   "W-well, the old guy, waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs!" Gourry replied, beginning to get a little nervous.

   "Oh, no," Amelia murmured. "I knew that poor old man was just a custodian!"

Zelgadis cleared his throat.

   "Actually, didn't I know that? Didn't you say that-"

   "Hey, you didn't see his teeth," Lina told him angrily, regardless of who had indeed been the one to 'say it'. "They must have been at least four inches long!"

   "Yes, poor Gustav does have something of a deformity," Erik sighed, emerging from the corner and approaching the group slowly. "It gives him – or rather, gave him, I assume – some understanding of what it is I go through. Ah, well. Since you have caused me great mental anguish by killing Gustav, I will redouble my efforts to see to it that you never leave this opera house!"

   "Yeah, he sure seems broken up about it," Lina noted dryly as Erik once again exploded into an evil laugh with just the right amount of insanity in it to make Gourry, Zelgadis, and Amelia exchange first alarmed, then impatient, and finally downright annoyed glances.

   "Yes, we get your point," Zelgadis finally broke in. "You don't need to go on for ten minutes for people to understand that you're evil!"

   "And how would you know that, young man?" Erik asked lightly. "Have you ever been evil?"

   "Suffice it to say, we've dealt with the breed."

   "Ah. I see. Well, hopefully your 'dealings' have taught you something, my friends, because the night is just beginning. After all, I would hate for you to give up so quickly, just when I was beginning to enjoy myself."

With that, he swirled his cape grandly about him, and the next moment, a burst of colourful smoke filled the air, along with the coughing and sputtering of four very miserable adventurers over the foul-smelling blue, pink, and purple billows. 

   "Don't tell me," Lina said flatly when the smoke had cleared to reveal only blank space where Erik had been standing. "You were raised by gypsies, right?"

   "I believe that my past is irrelevant, my dear," the disembodied voice called, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "Think no more on that which is not your business, and enjoy the masquerade! If you can find the correct door, you may progress. If not…I do hope you feel in the mood to dance, for you shall spend the rest of your lives at it!"

   "Now, I'm pretty sure none of this was here before," Gourry noted, gazing curiously around the room, which had been filled suddenly with light, music, and laughter, as well as crowds of people, all in finely tailored, gaily coloured suits, dresses, and costumes of all sorts, chattering merrily to one another over the general chaos of a party.

   "This…feels way too familiar," Lina noted, turning slightly green as she looked slowly about the room. "And I've got this feeling that it's gonna end even worse than last time."

   "How could it possibly be worse than you Dragon-Slaving down the building, finding out we've been in a theme park the whole time, and taking off in a leaky boat?" Zelgadis demanded, inching away from a large, middle-aged man who was eyeing him interestedly.

Lina blinked.

   "Zel, what are you talking about?"

   "Mr. Zelgadis!" Amelia murmured. "You're doing it again! That doesn't happen until _next_ season!"

   "Sorry."

   "Oh, look, guys, we don't have time for these weird side-conversations right now! We've got to find our way out of this room before someone puts me in a dress and makes me dance!" Lina exclaimed frantically.

   "Excellent!" Erik's voice proclaimed, quite pleased. "Let the ball begin, then!"

   "Wow," Gourry noted, looking about him curiously. "Is it just me, or did the music get a whole lot more ominous?"

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End Notes: Okay, I'm not terribly thrilled with this chapter, but it was kind of a "had-to-get-it-out-of-the-way" chapter, so I hope you can bear with me. 

Also, having re-read this story since improving my writing a wee bit and finding that I was not at all happy with it (bad and/or clichéd characterization, minimal detail, no real plot to speak of, no compensating ridiculous humour), I feel that a complete rewrite of the first four chapters is in order. I think I'll be making that my Christmas holiday project.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Bye! [Waves cheerfully, then bounces away to do something productive…like write another fan fiction]


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